Corruption as empowerment?
If India’s maverick psychologist and social critic Ashis Nandy had planned to ignite a potentially ugly controversy at the Jaipur Literary Festival, he couldn’t have done better than by insinuating…
The yell for democracy
Democracy has to be saved and that is the clarion call from the various TV channels. What is the motivation for all this shouting? Winston Churchill (WC) did say that…
One billion rising and …
Eve Ensler, the American playwright and feminist activist, is set to give the final push that she believes will banish violence against women from our lives for ever. She has…
Seize Kashmir
he recent developments in Kashmir and India offer Pakistan a fresh opportunity to redesign policy. We put Kashmir on the backburner for a decade, with very little return. The Indian…
Emerging economies
Since long, Pakistan is locked up in a situation of economic volatility, infrastructural deficit, financial disaster in public sector entities and growing poverty. Reformatory policies undertaken by different sectors of…
Endemic corruption
Pakistan is going through an immensely difficult era. Is it because of democracy? Is it because of the legacy that Musharraf left behind? Whatever the diagnosis the fact is that…
Afghanistan beyond 2014
The post-2014 situation in Afghanistan, after the withdrawal of the US/Nato/ International Security Assistance Force, has been the subject of a most vexing debate in recent times. The main difficulty…
Education and mobility
When I was in college, our undergraduate classes were allocated on the basis of student roll numbers. We were thus forced to interact with students who did not belong to…
Doctors on strike
A cat and mouse game is raging on between young doctors and the government of Punjab. There is a set pattern being followed by both sides, based on earlier skirmishes…
The state and economic development
The role of the Pakistani state in the country’s economy has recently come under scrutiny - in reference to the ongoing electricity and natural gas/CNG crisis. The argument usually put…
